Age
by Chaotic Kitty
Summary: Just some Rogue thoughts. Written an age ago and left languishing on my hard drive, so I thought I would post. Slighty shippy WR! Rated for a few non PG words and deeds.


They are sort of sweet, but they don't understand.  
They are sort of kind, but they are claustrophobically cautious.  
They are very Naive, and they shouldn't be! 

I admit, I understand, and I realise that from the outside of things, it should be a certain way.

Looking objectively in a mirror I see it. My face is full, still just a promise of the adult features beneath the layer of adolescence.My smile is carefree, most of the time.  
My frame is small; I'm not tall, not short either, but not tall.  
But my figure, is not a child's, but I suppose under the three layers of loose clothing I arrived in (because travelling like I had been for over a year, well that just doesn't pile on the pounds), and the layers I continue to wear, because I don't feel comfortable around many people. It makes it easy for them not to see.  
Most of the voices in my head sneer at this, well the older mutant voices do, because Xavier's is a mutant haven, a place where looking, understanding what's beneath the surface, it should be second nature here.

But It isn't.

They put me in a room with a couple of girls, who are sweet and lovely and carefree and everything I can never be.  
They shake their heads and feel sorry for the untouchable girl.  
They sit fast in their belief that my feelings for Logan are a crush.  
And they truly don't understand that I'm not a girl... Not anymore, not since I was seventeen and on a bed killing a boy.

That's 17

Not Since Jake Bayers in Texas

That's 58

Not since Bud Holskein in Oklahoma

That's 45

Not since Jason House in Kansas

That's 72

Not since Ernie and Anna King in Colorado

That's 31 and 26

I made it all the way up to Montana before It happened again, Stu Peters

That was 56

Not since Logan

Just on what we remember, that's at least 20

Certainly not since Eric Lensherr

That's 65

Not since Carol Danvers

That's 37

They don't understand, not even Charles, that I see, feel, know everything that they did. I've lived it, it happened to me, Four would be rapists and murderers, Those four are dark and pathetic and I remember everyone they touched, everyone who touched them. I remember Jakes Poppa coming into his room late at night after his mother went to bed, I remember clutching my teddy and wishing I knew why he was here, what he was doing, how come Poppa, who was supposed to love him was hurting him, I remember realising that it was Love that hurt and that you shouldn't ever do that. I remember that first drunken fumble with a girl, and how that rush of sexual excitement was followed by this rage, and how the rage hurt less when he hit her.

I remember the first girl that Bud ever fucked, I remember the feel of her cold lifeless body as he slammed into her, how quiet she was, and how much he liked that.

Jason was my mistake, I stayed with him a day too long and got comfortable, he didn't seem "the type" so I let my guard down and he pounced, after all I was just another run away.

Ernie and Anna, I'd slept by their dumpster, their turf, they wanted me gone, when Anna, who'd snagged my wrist had fallen, Ernie had attacked my throat in rage. They'd killed before, but they were street rats, it was about survival, they weren't bad. But they'd lived through shit too; a brother and sister with some truly fucked up parents.

That was when I got the long gloves and the scarf and that helped. With all I had in my head at that point, I could fight off most of those who came at me.

Stu Peters was just a fool, he thought he should get something for helping out, and nothing so far had shown him that was wrong, any hitch who said no was out on the road again, their choice really. She'd said no, but he'd grabbed her wrist to convince her, and that was that. He'd also been a telepath, which was a bit of a shock. Not a strong one, but he could shield, and he did, almost constantly. That came in useful.

I turned 18 on the road, my head full of rapes and being raped. My head full of the thrill of the kill, the feel of hot blood coating my hands. Knowing what it was like clutching at a broken bone and praying that it's got a chance to heal before the next time. Remembering the winters when I couldn't get shelter, the feel of my toes frostbitten and my flesh rotting.

Other than the nightmares, Logan's past was, well he didn't have one, just 20 years of fighting and fucking and instinct. The instinct is handy, the fighting is damned useful, I can deal with the nightmares, just another in the mix I already have, but he is a good man and both times I took him into me, he was filled with such concern and desire to help, to help me. He's my favourite voice.

Eric is pain, old enough when the soldiers came to know what was happening, the starving empty feeling of the camp, the horror as he was part of the detail shovelling bodies after their "shower", seeing his mothers frantic face frozen in death, the soldiers, the beatings, the doctors, the testing, the absolute certainty that this would happen again. Eric gave me history, and history hurts.

By the time Carol attacked I knew enough to stop anything except that much strength, and in the mansion of all places I felt safe, it was her mission for the brotherhood. She'd been planted to get information, then to get me to Magneto by any means. But she knew she couldn't last much longer, and the mission was paramount, so she'd come at The Rogue wanting to die, and she had.

It had taken weeks to quiet the turmoil in her mind after that, weeks that I'd locked myself away in a guest suite, claiming it as my own. Barricading myself from the rest of the house, walling Jean and Charles out and warning him to stay out of my head while I got things straight.

They'd even called Logan back to see if he could talk to her. She'd shouted a lot then, in her mind she'd screamed at Charles that he wasn't helping that she was fine she wasn't running, wasn't going mad, wasn't going to do herself harm but she needed to box everyone away again and no one could help with that. Logan had understood, no one else had. So when people approached her room, she could fly off to the forest. She did that a lot. And that's when he'd found her.

All gruff and concerned, he'd told her that he'd tried to explain to the geeks that she should be left alone, but that they were do gooder freaks, and couldn't really help it. Then he'd hugged her in that tight careless way of his, told me to find him when I was ready, promised to keep them from her so she could safely stay in her room if she needed that.

He'd kissed her head then, and through the thin bangs of her fringe he felt the barest whisper of him, he'd protect her, because he loved her. And that was that.

When she'd come out, she'd tracked him down to the dining room, her head clear, a new life's worth of memories, a new permanent set of powers now fully controlled, and when Logan had come straight to me with a smile on his face, love in his heart and just hugged me, no one understood, or really approved.

We didn't care.

It's funny though, including the years I have been alive. I am 450 years old.

They don't understand that in the grand scheme of things, Logan is probably too young for me.


End file.
